Double IPA's Revisited

To Filter or not to Filter

This is a topic I have been having discussions over for many years.  Since I started brewing commercially, I have worked in breweries that filter, and breweries that don't filter.  I know many brewers that firmly believe in filtering.  I know a couple brewers and many beer drinkers that don't like filtering.  One of the best brewers in the city strongly believes in filtering.  I am on the fence.

I think it's important to first talk about why brewers filter beer.  The most obvious reason is for clarity.  Some yeast strains don't flocculate (settle out) very well.  The yeast stays in suspension and gives the beer a cloudy look.  The cloudy look is acceptable (and expected) for hefeweizens and other wheat beers, but not for most other beers.  A nice, bright, clear pilsener is a thing of beauty to look at.  A yeasty, cloudy pilsener is not.  

Another reason for filtering is for packaging.  When breweries package their beer in kegs or bottles and distribute them, the beer often sits warm in the liquor store storage room, or the distribution warehouse.  Filtering out the yeast helps stabilize the beer.  Some of the large breweries even flash pasteurize the beer to make sure it will be able to withstand the harsh distribution process.  That's how important it is.

One more reason for filtering is for taste.  Yeast tends to have a bready, astringent, and sometimes harsh taste to it.  When the yeast is left in the beer, it can contribute greatly to the taste.  Pale Ales are often perceived as being more bitter than they actually are because of the astringency of the yeast.  Dark beers are already astringent because of the roasted malts.  Yeast magnifies it even more.  Filtering removes the yeast, thus removing all of the tastes described above, and their associated aromas.

These are all great arguments for filtering, so why am I bothering to question the process?  Because so what. 

Despite all the reasons to filter, I personally don't really care.  I actually prefer the taste of the yeast in suspension.  I prefer cloudy beers.  I like how unfiltered beers taste more bitter.  I like chunks of stuff floating in my beer.  It lets me know it's brewed by hand in small batches at the brewery.  It lets me know it's fresh because the yeast is still alive in the beer.  The beers are often more tasty because filtering actually strips color, body, and bitterness from the beer.  And I am not alone in this line of thinking.

My preference has to do with my love of brewpubs.  I don't care much for bottled beer.  It's over-processed and often brewed to be inoffensive to the masses.  Brewpubs brew beers that sometimes push the envelope and beers their customer base will enjoy.

Brewpubs are often too small or don't have the time and money to have a filter.  Many brewpubs don't package and sell off site, so they don't have a need for a filter.  These are the beers I have grown to love, and still love very much.  This influences my tastes and perceptions very greatly.

There are other taste related reasons for not filtering also.  During the aging process, yeast helps condition beer by re-absorbing off flavors and aromas and metabolizing other compounds in the beer.  Higher gravity beers (which need more aging time) do much better unfiltered because they continue to condition in the keg or serving tank.

I don't think dark beers should be filtered at all.  The clarity issue does not apply to dark beers as you can't see through them anyway.  The yeast in suspension helps condition the beer as it ages, and I like the taste of unfiltered dark beers a lot.

Lighter beers like cream ales, pilseners, golden ales, etc. probably should be filtered.  People that drink those styles typically like very smooth, light, easy to drink beers.  If they were unfiltered, the yeast would add a bit of harshness to the beer which many people wouldn't like.

There is also an historical perspective.  Not until the 1900's has beer been filtered.  Early brewers in Germany or England never had the technology to filter (nor the care or need to).  I don't know the historical facts, but my guess is the large budmillercoors type breweries began to filter in order to "clean up" their products.  Once they started producing clear, clean, bright beers, the public began to enjoy them and eventually prefer them. 

Modern brewing science has advanced greatly in the last century (and in the last 5 years for that matter), and those advances should be taken advantage of.  But I believe in using less technology to serve a natural, unfiltered, fresh beer.  That's my preference.  And as a brewer, I simply dislike the process of filtering.  It takes a lot of time to set up and sanitize the filter, it takes time to transfer the beer through the filter, and it takes time to clean everything up.  Call me lazy.  And the added labor and filtering costs raise the cost of producing beer.

I guess I have a lot more reasons to filter than to not filter.  And as a commercial brewer, I have to do what customers like if I want to sell beer, which often means filtering.  But it comes down to a simple matter of taste preference, and style guidelines.

Some styles like hefeweizens shouldn't be filtered.  Others like pilseners should - I think lager yeasts lend unfavorable flavors to lager beers.  Still, other beers like some British ales are traditionally and currently served unfiltered. 

So which do you prefer?  There are good arguments for both sides.  I guess I have to say I prefer both.